Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

Dane County is located in south-central Wisconsin and is anchored by Madison, which serves as both the county seat and the state capital. The county covers about 1,196 square miles of land and extends across a varied landscape of glacially formed lakes, rolling farmland, wetlands, wooded ridges and rapidly growing suburban communities. Its most prominent geographic feature is the chain of lakes around Madison—including Mendota, Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa—linked by the Yahara River, while the western part of the county reaches into the more rugged terrain near the Driftless Area. Beyond Madison, major communities include Sun Prairie, Fitchburg, Middleton, Verona, Monona and Stoughton, alongside numerous villages and rural towns. Dane County was created in 1836 and named for Nathan Dane, a Massachusetts lawyer and statesman; it had 561,504 residents in the 2020 census, making it Wisconsin’s second-most-populous county.